Power plant efficiency is generally determined by projected electricity tariffs and power plant life cycle costs during the design phase. By improving technology, life cycle costs can be reduced thus making it possible to improve power plant efficiency economically.
Splash grid types of fills are used in cooling towers to enhance heat and mass transfer, in particular when cooling water quality is poor. Commercially available splash grids are, however, not specifically designed for reducing the drop size to a satisfactorily effective level and the drops of water falling from the existing splash grids to create a rain zone beneath them, are rather large. Existing splash grids have large open areas through which drops can pass without impingement on the grid.
Rain or spray zones comprise liquid drops with a poly-disperse size distribution freefalling under gravity in moving or stationary gas. In rain zones below cooling tower fills or packing, the drops drip from the base of the fill, whereas in spray zones, the drops are produced by sprayers.
It has been demonstrated semi-empirically using computational fluid dynamic models that the performance of cooling tower rain zones and thus cooling towers can be increased significantly for different cases investigated, by reducing the Sauter mean drop diameter in the rain zone.
It would be desirable to provide splash grids that may be used to enhance the performance of the rain zone below a conventional cooling tower fill and to thereby enhance the thermal performance of a cooling tower and result in a reduction in power plant costs and that may also be used in any other appropriate rain or spray zone situation.
It would also be desirable to provide splash grids suitable for achieving a drop size reduction in multiple liquid drops freefalling under the influence of gravity in moving or stationary gas or vapour for the enhancement of heat and mass transfer performance characteristics.